DOI Artikel:
Smorąg Różycka, Małgorzata: ‘She begged the child: Let me embrace thee, Lord!’ A Byzantine icon with the Virgin Eleousa in the Poor Clares Convent in Cracow
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44936#0008
7
and dated to the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries.6 A short
note on the icon was published by Mirosław Piotr Kruk
who determined its iconographie type as the Sweet-lov-
ing (Gr. Glykophilousa), pointed in general terms to its
Balkan origins and dated it tentatively to the fourteenth
century (?).7 He also repeated the supposition, already
stated in the Catalogue of Historic Monuments in Poland
and subsequently in the Pax et Вопит exhibition cata-
logue, that the icon, after having been re-painted, served
as a central panel of a triptych whose wings were donated
to the National Museum in Cracow by Abbess Anna Ro-
dakowska (1895-1898) in 1896. Yet, in reports dealing with
this donation no mention had been made of the central
panel. Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, the then director of the
National Museum, which at that time was housed in the
Sukiennice [Cloth Hall], in a letter of 21 May 1896 asked
Abbess Anna Rodakowska about ‘two little winglets from
a triptych, painted on both sides, nowadays no longer use-
ful and put in storage’.8 In the same letter Łuszczkiewicz
mentioned that, when he and Stanisław Tomkowicz had
been examining the treasures of the convent a few days
earlier, Abbess Rodakowska decided ‘in her generosity to
donate wings of the triptych to the collection of the Na-
tional Museum in Sukiennice [Cloth Hall]’, and that this
donation was ‘related to patriotic objectives and [will be
of service to] Polish learning’.9 The paintings must have
been removed to the museum within a few days since, al-
ready on 24 May 1896, Łuszczkiewicz issued an official let-
ter with thanks for the gift: Tn appreciation of the noble
sacrifice of the Convent of St Andrew made for the benefit
of the national collection, which consists in donating to
the museum, as its perpetual property, two wings, painted
on both sides, of a seventeenth-century triptych, measur-
ing 0.20 X 055, the Committee of the National Museum in
Cracow has the honour to express their gratitude for the
gift and commend the Museum to the Convent’s generos-
ity also in future’.10 What follows from the correspondence
is merely that the paintings used to be parts of an oth-
erwise unknown triptych. Łuszczkiewicz does not men-
tion the central panel at all. Nor was this problem clarified
by Feliks Kopera, who dated both panels to the second
half of the sixteenth century and tentatively attributed
them to Jan Ziarnko: ‘The two little paintings - wings of
a small triptych in the National Museum, depicting saints,
painted subtly in a style reminiscent of an engraver’s,
using a combination of oil and tempera - could be ascribed
6 Fr M. Janocha, Ikony w Polsce. Od średniowiecza do współczesno-
ści, Warsaw, 2008, pp. 420-421, Fig. 314.
7 M.P. Kruk, Ikony-obrazy w świątyniach rzymsko-katolickich daw-
nej Rzeczypospolitej, Cracow, 2011, pp. 30-31,323, Figs 4-5.
8 ‘dwa skrzydełka małe od tryptyku malowane obustronnie a dziś
niepożyteczne więcej i złożone na skład’, Archives of the Poor
Clares Convent (Archiwum Klasztoru Klarysek), ms В 22, p. 45.
9 Ibidem, p. 46.
10 Ibidem, p. 49.
to Ziarnko’.11 The problem of authorship was ultimately
solved, so it seems, when an inscription, written in an open
book depicted in the Annunciation (on the obverse of the
leftwing), reading: SA[M]V|EL|CRUG:|ERAN[N]O|i63O
PINX[IT], was deciphered. According to it, the panels
were painted by Samuel Cruger.12 What could not be de-
termined, however, was the date when the triptych was
dismantled. In 1896, Łuszczkiewicz and Tomkowicz saw
already two wings ‘put in storage’.
The painting of the Virgin and Child underwent con-
servation treatment twice. The first one was carried out by
Irena Święcicka in 1963, as testified by an inscription on the
reverse: ‘X-XI w’, ‘konserwowała | IRENA ŚWIĘCICKA
I STARANIEM MATKI ANTONINY | JANUSZ | 1963’
[‘X-XI c.’, ‘restored by | IRENA ŚWIĘCICKA | ON THE
INITIATIVE OF MOTHER ANTONINA | JANUSZ |
1963’]. The second treatment, conducted by Wioletta Mal-
ska from 13 January 1999 to 28 June 2000, revealed a hith-
erto unknown original paint layer which exhibits simi-
larities in composition and iconography with the image
on the surface, but is completely different from it in style
and colours.
A limewood support measuring 54 x 40 x 1 cm and
covered with a layer of gesso priming, represents a half-
length image of the Virgin and Child, painted in tempera
against a gold background [Fig. 1]. The panel is mounted
in a moulded limewood frame measuring 4.5 x 2.7 cm,
and fixed by means of larchwood dowels.
Mary is shown in a purple dress, trimmed with gold,
and a light-blue maphorion, under which a red skull-cap
covering the hair is visible. She carries the Christ Child on
her left arm, pressing his cheek to her face. The left hand of
the Child is placed in Mary’s right; his right hand is miss-
ing owing to the loss of the paint layer. The Child wears
a white patterned chiton with application in the form of
a red stripe, and a golden himation wrapped around his
waist and draped around his legs. The Child’s bare feet,
in a characteristic crossed position, are visible under the
himation: the right foot, its sole turned towards the view-
er, is put across the left one, thus partially obscuring it.
Original halos were lost along with substantial portions of
the gold ground, of which only three small fragments sur-
vive: two larger areas - one on the right-hand side, with
legible incised acanthus leaves arranged in the candela-
bra form, and one on the left, as well as the smallest one,
above the Virgin’s head, which was inpainted by Wioletta
Malska in order to give the background a uniform appear-
ance.13 Numerous marks left by nails, revealed during the
most recent conservation treatment, likely suggest that
11 F. Kopera, Malarstwo w Polsce od XVI do XVIII wieku. (Renesans,
Barok, Rokoko), Cracow, 1926 (Dzieje malarstwa w Polsce, pt II),
pp. 173-174, fig. 175; see also F. Kopera, J. Kwiatkowski, Obrazy
polskiego pochodzenia w Muzeum Narodowym w Krakowie,
Cracow, 1929, pp. 92-93, fig. 80.
12 See Pax et Bonum, p. 49 (as in note 1).
13 W. Malska, Konserwacja obrazu sztalugowego, p. 26 (as in note 3).
and dated to the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries.6 A short
note on the icon was published by Mirosław Piotr Kruk
who determined its iconographie type as the Sweet-lov-
ing (Gr. Glykophilousa), pointed in general terms to its
Balkan origins and dated it tentatively to the fourteenth
century (?).7 He also repeated the supposition, already
stated in the Catalogue of Historic Monuments in Poland
and subsequently in the Pax et Вопит exhibition cata-
logue, that the icon, after having been re-painted, served
as a central panel of a triptych whose wings were donated
to the National Museum in Cracow by Abbess Anna Ro-
dakowska (1895-1898) in 1896. Yet, in reports dealing with
this donation no mention had been made of the central
panel. Władysław Łuszczkiewicz, the then director of the
National Museum, which at that time was housed in the
Sukiennice [Cloth Hall], in a letter of 21 May 1896 asked
Abbess Anna Rodakowska about ‘two little winglets from
a triptych, painted on both sides, nowadays no longer use-
ful and put in storage’.8 In the same letter Łuszczkiewicz
mentioned that, when he and Stanisław Tomkowicz had
been examining the treasures of the convent a few days
earlier, Abbess Rodakowska decided ‘in her generosity to
donate wings of the triptych to the collection of the Na-
tional Museum in Sukiennice [Cloth Hall]’, and that this
donation was ‘related to patriotic objectives and [will be
of service to] Polish learning’.9 The paintings must have
been removed to the museum within a few days since, al-
ready on 24 May 1896, Łuszczkiewicz issued an official let-
ter with thanks for the gift: Tn appreciation of the noble
sacrifice of the Convent of St Andrew made for the benefit
of the national collection, which consists in donating to
the museum, as its perpetual property, two wings, painted
on both sides, of a seventeenth-century triptych, measur-
ing 0.20 X 055, the Committee of the National Museum in
Cracow has the honour to express their gratitude for the
gift and commend the Museum to the Convent’s generos-
ity also in future’.10 What follows from the correspondence
is merely that the paintings used to be parts of an oth-
erwise unknown triptych. Łuszczkiewicz does not men-
tion the central panel at all. Nor was this problem clarified
by Feliks Kopera, who dated both panels to the second
half of the sixteenth century and tentatively attributed
them to Jan Ziarnko: ‘The two little paintings - wings of
a small triptych in the National Museum, depicting saints,
painted subtly in a style reminiscent of an engraver’s,
using a combination of oil and tempera - could be ascribed
6 Fr M. Janocha, Ikony w Polsce. Od średniowiecza do współczesno-
ści, Warsaw, 2008, pp. 420-421, Fig. 314.
7 M.P. Kruk, Ikony-obrazy w świątyniach rzymsko-katolickich daw-
nej Rzeczypospolitej, Cracow, 2011, pp. 30-31,323, Figs 4-5.
8 ‘dwa skrzydełka małe od tryptyku malowane obustronnie a dziś
niepożyteczne więcej i złożone na skład’, Archives of the Poor
Clares Convent (Archiwum Klasztoru Klarysek), ms В 22, p. 45.
9 Ibidem, p. 46.
10 Ibidem, p. 49.
to Ziarnko’.11 The problem of authorship was ultimately
solved, so it seems, when an inscription, written in an open
book depicted in the Annunciation (on the obverse of the
leftwing), reading: SA[M]V|EL|CRUG:|ERAN[N]O|i63O
PINX[IT], was deciphered. According to it, the panels
were painted by Samuel Cruger.12 What could not be de-
termined, however, was the date when the triptych was
dismantled. In 1896, Łuszczkiewicz and Tomkowicz saw
already two wings ‘put in storage’.
The painting of the Virgin and Child underwent con-
servation treatment twice. The first one was carried out by
Irena Święcicka in 1963, as testified by an inscription on the
reverse: ‘X-XI w’, ‘konserwowała | IRENA ŚWIĘCICKA
I STARANIEM MATKI ANTONINY | JANUSZ | 1963’
[‘X-XI c.’, ‘restored by | IRENA ŚWIĘCICKA | ON THE
INITIATIVE OF MOTHER ANTONINA | JANUSZ |
1963’]. The second treatment, conducted by Wioletta Mal-
ska from 13 January 1999 to 28 June 2000, revealed a hith-
erto unknown original paint layer which exhibits simi-
larities in composition and iconography with the image
on the surface, but is completely different from it in style
and colours.
A limewood support measuring 54 x 40 x 1 cm and
covered with a layer of gesso priming, represents a half-
length image of the Virgin and Child, painted in tempera
against a gold background [Fig. 1]. The panel is mounted
in a moulded limewood frame measuring 4.5 x 2.7 cm,
and fixed by means of larchwood dowels.
Mary is shown in a purple dress, trimmed with gold,
and a light-blue maphorion, under which a red skull-cap
covering the hair is visible. She carries the Christ Child on
her left arm, pressing his cheek to her face. The left hand of
the Child is placed in Mary’s right; his right hand is miss-
ing owing to the loss of the paint layer. The Child wears
a white patterned chiton with application in the form of
a red stripe, and a golden himation wrapped around his
waist and draped around his legs. The Child’s bare feet,
in a characteristic crossed position, are visible under the
himation: the right foot, its sole turned towards the view-
er, is put across the left one, thus partially obscuring it.
Original halos were lost along with substantial portions of
the gold ground, of which only three small fragments sur-
vive: two larger areas - one on the right-hand side, with
legible incised acanthus leaves arranged in the candela-
bra form, and one on the left, as well as the smallest one,
above the Virgin’s head, which was inpainted by Wioletta
Malska in order to give the background a uniform appear-
ance.13 Numerous marks left by nails, revealed during the
most recent conservation treatment, likely suggest that
11 F. Kopera, Malarstwo w Polsce od XVI do XVIII wieku. (Renesans,
Barok, Rokoko), Cracow, 1926 (Dzieje malarstwa w Polsce, pt II),
pp. 173-174, fig. 175; see also F. Kopera, J. Kwiatkowski, Obrazy
polskiego pochodzenia w Muzeum Narodowym w Krakowie,
Cracow, 1929, pp. 92-93, fig. 80.
12 See Pax et Bonum, p. 49 (as in note 1).
13 W. Malska, Konserwacja obrazu sztalugowego, p. 26 (as in note 3).